MY MOMENTS WITH ALJAZEERA'S PETER GREESTE

With Greeste in an Armored vehicle embedded with Ugandan  AU troops in Baidoa Somalia

Mohammed Nagy enters the court room packed with journalist a few minutes  past noon ….he is a large size man with  a weird sense of fashion…. wearing sunglasses in a court room ….but at  this moment and time he is the man with the last word.

Mohammed Fahmy, Baher Mohamed  and Peter Greeste in white prisoner uniform  hold each other and listen attentively  as the obese judge mumbles the long awaited  verdict in Arabic….they had already spent 177 days prison together.

In less than a minute the three journalists’ fate had been sealed by Judge Nagy .

As far as Egyptian authorities were concerned  these  award winning journalists were “terrorists” !!

In defiant a shocked Peter Greeste the Al Jazeera correspondent based in Nairobi raises a fist as he was escorted by the police to start a seven year long jail term in a foreign country. For a man I knew …this was  Injustice

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The best I could catch was a two hour sleep in an air-conditioned cabin ( I just hate air conditioners) set at 24….sometimes switching it to 27…then  back to 23 degrees…the remote control playing around  with the Mogadishu heat outside and the extreme cold from the inside of this cabin at the African Union Troops camp

A white  South African Communications engineer had a surprise for us the previous night …it was my birthday , the second in a warzone …and as was the last in 2006 I literally had a blast…as in Bomb Blast…the same happened on the 5th of May  2013….The South African had brought a shisha bottle, tobacco and an electric gas cooker to burn the shisha charcoal…(that was very inventive of the Afrikaner…less hustle) 

Relaxing in a Maawis at my AU Base camp cabin

With CNNs Nima Elbagy at AU base, Mogadishu

With Nima ElBagiy at AU Base Camp

Ready for assignment at the AU base camp

We chewed the night away outside our cabins overlooking the Indian Ocean made beautiful by the moon reflection chatting with the CNN Correspondent Nina Elbagiy and her Kenyan producer Lepaso , my cameraman Kip and an AU Press guy Omar…the usual chit chat foreign journalists have after a long day of shooting ( I mean camera shooting),  shooting (now I mean gunshots), a bomb blast and an unforgiving heat of Mogadishu…scripting……voicing…..editing footage and crossing your fingers as you watch the percentage go up hoping that your story will make it  to the  email of some  un-appreciating- on- the -rush- to- get- the friday- booze- guy on the desk in   Nairobi,  without some internet  hitch

The day before had not been a good one for us…we were frustrated ….the AU command  in Kismayu had denied my crew and CNN  the greenlight to cover that city some 400 km south of Mogadishu  Reason?…..two warlords had turned their guns on  each other….and there were reports that Kenyan soldiers had been attacked…unconfirmed casualties …and that Kenya forces were backing one of the warlords…..not a good PR for KDF  in  this city which marks the highlight/ climax of Kenya’s military mission having lodged out the militant group Alshabaab from their stronghold in a commando operation in 2013. My target was not Kismayu though….I was hoping to reach Barawe the Alshabab remaining stronghold upon arrival  in Kismayu.

Sandwiched by Nima ElBagiy and Samira

Samira had a plan B. Samira headed the AU/IST press team. This  beautiful  Kenyan Somali go-getter had managed to organize for my crew a chopper flight to Baidoa city….some 300km north west of   Mogadishu..to “scratch for a story” She knew how disappointed I must have been but Samira always had away to make a stubborn reporter  forget his letdowns  . She had good experience working for Presidents Moi and Kibaki in the PPS

CNN declined the plan B. I had to say yes. We were to fly by chopper some 300 kms to Baidoa a city in the agricultural Bay region  central Somalia and “scratch for a story”. Samira would later tell me  in confidence that the KDF were not happy at a facebook status I had posted about a previous attack in Kismayu….KDF had actually called my bosses back in Nairobi on the issue. An Alshabaab militant had called to give me details of the attack….KDF must have been shocked how much info I had gathered about the Kismayu Airport attack despite been blocked from covering that beautiful Swahili city in Southern Somalia

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My sleep was disrupted when we had a bang on our cabin door….still sleepy from last night’s  chew and hubble bubble..….I couldn’t   make it out who had opened the door….it was as early as 7 am but the Mogadishu sun! waaa! You could have sworn it was  noon!

“Yassin up… up…haraka haraka (fast) you have to be at the airport like right now…the Ugandan Captain  has called says the chopper should be leaving anytime for Baidoa”. That was Samira

In no time (and no breakfast except for  some energy  bar  CNN’s Nina had offered me the night before)  we had packed our tv equipment and dashed  to a blue not new Toyota  Hilux Surf waiting for us a few meters from the cabin with Shariff  the ethnic Somali Ethiopian national driver giving us a wide grin……of course he knew why the night was long and sleepless for us .”MrYassin chat chat all night  ” he said in broken English as he engaged the gear and sped off

In no time we were at the the Abdille Aden International Airport…..it neighbours the AU military camp the where we were embedded  …..we  went through the security check and some confirmation of the  passenger  manifesto. Among the names on the manifesto was one Peter Greeste, the award winning Aljazeera correspondent

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John Kinyua, Yassin and Peter Greeste, Baidoa

“YassinJuma!” an excited John Kinyua the Aljazeera cameraman shouted as we entered the lounge to wait to be allowed into the chopper

“ Miakamingi (its been many years)” he said as we shook hands.

“Peter this is YassinJuma. Yassin this is Peter Greeste” Kinyua introduced me to his correspondent. I had not met Greeste personally but I knew who he was … I admired  his reports. In journalism experience puts you above the rest…that was evidence in his reports

So we shook hands with this short Australian correspondent  who seemed a bit edgy at that time…. He was wearing a beige cap and   wasn’t sitting on the available lounge couches…sorry actually plastic chairs…it was Somalia….he stood beside his tv equipment lying  on the ground…..his light blue khaki shirt soaked in sweat that was continually generated by the heat of Mogadishu…a silver chain stuck on his sweating neck

Greeste seemed like he needed to gather as much info as he could before we land in Baidoa, our destination. So as we waited to be ushered in to the United Nations chopper I managed to brief him of what to expect in Baidoa….a city once referred to as the “city of death”, that I had visited for close to seven years during the Somalia civil war

“He is the expert on Somalia. You should listen to him” a smiling Kinyua, the Aljazeera cameraman, told Greeste.

“Yassin am told by someone you have been denied entry into Kismayu. Too bad. We actually had chartered  a plane to Kismayu but  we were turned back at the airport ” Kinyua told me laughing

“Actually my plan was to arrive in Kismayu and hit the road north to Barawe.  Alshabab head of Press was expecting me in Barawe…. but then again yesterday’s bomb blast ruined our plans. I told *****(Alshabaab head of press…sorry reader no giving out names here, professional ethics)  that I may have to postpone the trip”  I told Kinyua

Kinyua and I  go way back .We had been travelling to Somalia together  since 2004. In many cases no media houses was willing to risk the lives of their journalists in volatile Somalia  and so many times it would be my crew and Kinyua plus his correspondent the famous Mauritanian Correspondent Mohammed Sufi ( I don’t know  if he was famous in other countries but this man was a household name in Somalia then). They were the Aljazeera Arabic team that covered the horn of Africa region  (there was no Aljazeera English back  then)

Mohammed Sufi was not your everyday TV Reporter. This Mauritanian  Arab man was big and had a stature of some top ranking government official who must have been “eating well” in whatever government  department he was  heading . And despite the extreme temperatures in Somalia he would always wear a suit and  a tie

Mohammed Sufi would hardly go out to the field  for his assignments…he would leave all that to his cameraman John Kinyua.

I remember sometime back in 2006 in Jowhar a small agricultural town in Somalia, some 93 km northwest of Mogadishu. Jowhar was then the seat of the newly relocated Somali Transitional Government TFG (it had been operating from Nairobi, Mogadishu had not yet been liberated from the more than fourteen feared warlords who controlled its districts )

When one arrives in Jowhar the first shock you get is in realizing that there  are serious farming communities among the Somalis. The area is green with banana plantations, watermelons, spermutto and other fruits, rice, maize, sorghum, millet. Its not the poster desert dry country  we know. Majority are the Somali Bantus a shy marginalized community descendants of slaves from Tanzania Zagawa and Zaramo tribes. All these seem to have captured my sense and that of Mohammed Sufi

But he was not ready to accompany me and my cameraman James Opiyo “Japicha” so he decides I direct the shooting for Aljazeera  plus  script a short  PTC  (Piece to Camera) for him  that he would do later in Arabic outside the Governors compound….that was Mohammed Sufi for you.

Later I learnt  that this reporter doubled up as the Mauritanian Ambassador to Djibouti explaining why he slept at  Mohammed Dheere the  Governors home along with the late President Abdullahi Yusuf while we had to spend the night at some small town hotel....... and why he was always after some tender or deal to do with the Somali government officials while we sweated our backs looking for stories all day

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The United Nations chopper was airborne and what a lovely view of  Mogadishu it was from above! The city had expanded since the last time I was here ….new buildings…. new neighbourhoods with iron sheets glittering under the Somali sun….more construction work , the expansive AU military camp and its long security fence a couple of white folks( I was shocked by the large number of whites in Mogadishu this time round) seen jogging in the morning  ,the  Indian Ocean and the white sandy beaches.

I have been travelling to Mogadishu or Hamaar as the locals call it , in four different phases of its twenty two years civil war …when it was under the control of the warlords…when it fell to the Islamic courts….When Ethiopian troops invaded and the transitional government took over and now when the AU are in control and the unending headache of Alshabab  insurgency

Greeste was sitting opposite me alongside five french speaking UN and AU officials probably  going back to their mission post  in Baidoa after some leave…the Russian crew a young man was busy glued to some game on his phone ....I was seated beside my cameraman Kip and Aljazeera’s KInyua time and again putting on some earphones to listen to some music for two good reason….I was kind of scared of a chopper flight since having a chopper crash while on duty in the Kenya Rift Valley sometime back.   Two…we had to kill time…it was a two hour-three hours flight to Baidoa on a chopper

Greeste seemed relaxed and was listening to some music too….a book on one hand ..sometime he would doze off…sometime he would put on his spectacles to read…. . I wouldn’t doze off myself….. time and again i looked down on the landscape that i had traversed for years …taking some photos using my cell phone. From above I managed to point out Buurhakaba …..some few kilometers from the town  back in 2007 I had a terrible motor accident while travelling on the Somali Prime Minister’s  Ali Gedi's motorcade  …it had me hospitalized for three months after three surgeries

The Chopper was  now descending and Baidoa…. green that time of the year…… could be seen from afar…beyond the city were green thickets and remote villages mostly controlled by Alshabaab….another remote  village a hideout for Abu Mansoor Al Amriki the rapping American Alshabab who had broken ranks with the leadership and was now a fugitive…hiding in the  remote bushes of  Bay region running away from Alshabaab and the Somali and AU troops

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We had less than two  hours for  Greeste and I   to cover Baidoa and let the world get a sense of what life was after the Al shabaab were forced to leave the city ( without a single bullet fired). It was a “tactical retreat” the militants later said. That’s very little time but Greeste and I were both experienced in covering war….i had covered the Somali war for seven years …he was much older than me…an old hand in the game  and had covered several wars across the world including Afghanistan and Iraq for “big” agencies Reuters , BBc and one time freelance …this was his second or third time in Somalia….but from our experience…..quick shots….keep rolling the camera ….have a list of  exactly what you  want but be on standby for anything unplanned…be aggressive but at the same time avoid being rude to get interviews

Four AU Armored vehicles were waiting to pick us up  at the small airport that was just next to a farm …an airport that had once a plane from Eritrea loaded with weapons landed to arm the militants….the same airport which back in 2005 we were taken hostage for hours on  by militia loyal to a local warlord who wasn’t very happy that we were leaving the city without being “taxed”….among the hostages was the late Somali president Abdullahi Yusuf  , two planes and a delegation of the Somali government…..a Russian plane crew. Me and my cameraman Robert “Gichboy” Gichira were the only press

“Afande iko sawa….twendewambele….tunafatawapili….tunaelekea mnyumba ya governor” the Ugandan AU officer  in charge of the convoy shouted out the  commands on a radio call inside the armored vehicles we had been ushered in . The instruction language for Uganda military is strictly Swahili…..despite the fact that majority of  Ugandans shun using that language that reached that country in the mid 1800s through Arabs and Swahili traders and later widely used by the military (Its an Idd Amin hangover someone told me in Kampala when I wanted to know why Ugandans have no interest in learning Swahili)

The heat inside the Armored vehicle was baking us …Greeste, Kip , Kinyua and I were sweating and bumping on each others shoulders as the uncomfortable monster  made its turns and brakes and bumps….and that ugly noise it made  as we snaked through the bushes on the Baidoa outskirts and the ruins that invite you to this city reminds you that you are in a warzone just in case you forgot.  We passed  the Ethiopian contingent camp…..the Burundian camp  …and made a sudden stop in front of a green gate where we found about 20 Ugandan soldiers guarding the compound …this was the governor’s residence

This was not what  Greeste and I had  expected …we had very little time and the formality of meeting the governor and cover what we later learnt was an elders meeting wasn’t our idea of a meaty warzone story . So for a moment Greeste and I looked at each other puzzled but unable to speak…it would be rude do speak …..any cameraman will tell you shooting inside a room, and poor lit to be precise…in  a story related to war  just doesn’t add up .  What we wanted was to be on the streets of Baidoa…get some noisy natural sounds of the market and donkey carts , of traders hawking their goods, old men chit chatting in some open tea kiosk 

Seated were about twelve  Somali elders from local clan the Rahaweyn….all wearing an embroidered  Muslim cap,a shirt  and  a maawis(loincloth), and their beard red with heena to dye the white  . The governor was meeting them and we found ourselves forced to cover the event….just to be polite enough to be given a greenlight to go  shooting in the city center …..the Governor was the last word here so we had to go by his wishes

While I was getting restless Greeste on the other hand was very diplomatic and took the initiative at the table to be our spokesman and explained to the governor and the elders eager to watch themselves on tv later in the evening what our mission in the city was

The Bay region Governor was in his fourties …. a young man (but clan equations made him very influential) who had left a  comfortable  life in the US  to help his war ravaged  country get back on its feet

The experienced Greeste takes the opportunity to have a one on one with the Governor and I take a lesson or two from the old guard admiring his interviewing skills. Before the interview he beckons me aside to ask if there was anything special I wanted to cover so that we can have an understanding on  what we want and what we dint ….to save time i.e

“Waryaa….jog …jog !” ( stop stop) the governors militia brandishing their AK 47s shouted at a a Donkey cart driver on the streets of  Baidoa who passed so close to the governor as he walked the streets to show us how the city had changed since Alshabaab were ousted . He was surrounded by the UPDF and his militia ..... there was so much tension in the air enough to let you know that things were not as good as the governor would have wanted us to believe

We were on the busy streets of Baidoa ….a city that had changed so much since my last visit . Kinyua was taking shots of Greeste  walking with the governor …I was busy looking for “everyday people” shots but still cautious of the danger i had presented myself to . We were heavily…heavily surrounded by the governor militia…the Somali national army and the Ugandan army….Even when Greeste and I stood to make some quick PTC (Reporter Piece to Camera) at the market ….the soldiers were all over our shots

I was used to quick shots and interviews in dangerous places under extreme heat carrying heavy tv equipment…I was hoping Greeste and Kinyua would manage…they tried the best they could ..as for me and Kip we had disappeared into the market  to get  some “real people” sound bytes…despite some warning from the AU  that we should not be out of sight ….understandably the city still had  a number of Alshabaab sympathisers and a foreign journalist presents a good target

Come to think of it now that Greeste is in jail. I never saw nothing that would have linked this seasoned  Aussie journalist to a terror group as the Egyptian authorities would want us to believe. The Prosecutor must have used some miracle to have a court convinced with absolutely no evidence presented before the Cairo court...kind of reminds me of Moses and Harun at an ancient Egyptian palace trying to convince the Pharaoh to let their people go

But it happens to journalists. It happened to me back in 2009 when the Ethiopian government branded me a “Somali terrorist disguise as reporter” when I reported the unreported struggle of the ethnic Oromo people …a majority ethnic group that have for years felt marginalised  by the minority Tigreans and Amharas…I spent seven days in the bush with the OLF rebels documenting  their daily life. Today I am a persona non grata in Ethiopia.

I remember in 2010…..I was on a fly 540 stop over  to Djibouti in Addis Ababa's Bole International Airport and the then Deputy Speaker of Kenya Parliament Farah Maalim looked back at me from where he was seated  and joked   “Yassin what if these people arrest you here…the plane is taking unusually too long for a stop over.”

For once I thought  the delay had everything to do with me.....those who know will tell you dont ever underestimate Ethiopia's spy agency  and  you must be aware of  Ethiopia’s history with journalists…..i thought I was gonna get arrested by Ethiopian security . In fact it would have been  two arrests....on this trip  I was accompanied by the same cameraman who had given the world those exclusive footage of the ragtag OLF  militia…one Eric Okoth. But somehow we arrived in Djibouti without a hitch

Having contacts  with groups like Alshabaab in search of a story has also made me viewed in suspicion  by authorities in Somalia and Kenya….always on the watch list with  spy agencies luring you with big money talk if you give them some info on some outlawed group or personality….you say no you are branded a terrorist sympathizer at best ...at worst a terrorist

This is  exactly the situation that  Greeste is caged in  

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I always assumed Egypt was the big brother of Africa…..we all looked upon its success…its largest armed forces in the continent….Cairos infrastructure....  the largest  city in Africa with the largest population ..

And of course the thrill of Kenya’s Gor Mahia or AFC leopards playing Zamalek…Zamalek was such a household name in Kenya since my teens…so much that one of my Uncles decided to call his son, my cousin, Zamalek. And if you are as old as this writer you should recall that Gor Mahia player  Abbas Khamis Magongo nicknamed “Zamalek”

Oh Egypt mother of Africa (All African folktale will tell you their origin is Misri or Egypt)…is this what you say is a track back to democracy ? Whatever happened to Egypt  after the Arab Spring?

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The footage of Greeste and his colleagues literally caged in courtrooms captures the saddest moment in journalism. Journalism is not a Crime. Free Peter Greeste !! Keep his story alive lest we forget ….he is going through all these on behalf of all journalists in the world.

Greeste and I in the armored vehicle